Hello, $14 Trillion

I'm so glad this debt is all just meaningless paper we don't actually owe anyone, because America is financially immortal and has the ability to leverage itself (a la Japan) to infinite heights, forever and ever amen. (That was sarcasm, in case you didn't notice.)

As discussed in The Trouble with Modern Monetary Theory, the ultimate source of inflation is gross malinvestment born of unproductive debt booms. That spending can come from government or the private sector - either way, the trouble comes when newly created funds are spent poorly, in a manner that fails to benefit the real economy.

Many now say inflation is nothing to worry about, because the statistics say so. Never mind stealth cost of living increases, or the reality that paper asset inflation (of the kind that Wall Street cheers) can ultimately be as destructive (via malinvestment and bad signaling) as the more blatant kind.

As a trader, none of this stuff really matters. Go long, go short, winners take money from losers, the game is the game, life goes on.

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But as a citizen and concerned observer of the global economy, every once in a while I can't help but get pissed at the happy go lucky "tra la la" attitudes that act as if all these bread and circus acts aren't ultimately destructive in the long run.

The cheerleaders for myopic, malinvestment oriented, middle class destroying, blatantly unproductive monetary policies are happy to get a little more juice here and now at the expense of future generations - their own children. And as a guy who doesn't even have children (yet), I think that freakin' sucks.